Strength at the Broken Places
by bingblot
Summary: AU episode insert for 4x9 "Kill Shot." Castle finds Beckett having a panic attack.


Disclaimer: All things "Castle" belong to the powers that be at ABC.

Author's Note: What comes of rewatching "Kill Shot" and also coming across the quote by Hemingway for something entirely unrelated and deciding that it needed to be written about for Beckett.

 **Strength at the Broken Places**

He wasn't going to get any sleep tonight. Castle was already sure of that.

He was too worked up, too worried over Beckett, this case, wondering what those damn stupid paper dolls meant.

He was restless and unable to settle—and he had to admit he wasn't exactly known for being calm at the best of times but tonight was bad, as bad as any jitters he'd ever felt.

He wandered upstairs to Alexis's room, for the second time in about ten minutes. She was sleeping now— _it's a school night, Dad, I'll be in bed by 11_ , he heard her voice in his mind from some other day—and felt a small smile curve his lips for the first time in what felt like days. His responsible little girl, enforcing her own curfew and bedtime. He certainly never had but then he'd never needed to.

He hovered over her bed, not quite able to sit down, and just listened to her soft, even breaths, watched the dark shadowy lump that was her body curled up in her bed although it was too dim in her room for him to actually see her. No need. He knew what she looked like asleep, how young she still looked, how adorable.

His heart clenched at the thought of Sarah Vasquez, who hadn't been that much older than Alexis was now. Remembered what Beckett had said— _one minute Sarah Vasquez is alive and planning the perfect wedding, and the next…_

Alexis was fine—she was going to be just fine, he reminded himself. But he abruptly decided that Alexis wasn't going to school the next day. Wasn't going anywhere the next day. She might protest but for once, he was putting his foot down. For that matter, his mother wasn't going anywhere either. Neither of them was going to set foot outside the loft if he had anything to say about it (and he damn well would)—so far, the victims had all been outside, going about their routines. His mother—thankfully—didn't have much of a routine but Alexis—his heart twisted again—did.

Alexis was going to be _fine_.

She stirred in her sleep, letting out a little snorting breath—adorable—and then shifted a little and he padded quietly out of her room. He wasn't going to disturb her.

Back downstairs, he paced for a while, wandered into the kitchen, contemplated his liquor cabinet, and then decided against it before returning to his office, automatically picking up his phone and checking it.

He froze. Beckett had called. And left a voice mail. What—

He almost dropped his phone in his fumbling eagerness—mingled in with nervousness—to listen to the message.

Breathing, harsh and rapid. And then something like a strangled sob. And then—glass shattering.

 _Oh god. Beckett._

Even before the short message had ended, he was already moving, was out of the loft before a minute had passed.

He had no clear memory of flagging down a cab and tersely giving Beckett's address. He did remember the promise to pay $200 if he arrived within 10 minutes.

He flung the bills at the driver and almost stumbled out of the cab in a panicked rush, his heart racing, terror clogging his throat.

 _Beckett. Beckett. Beckett._

Her name formed a terrified mantra in his mind, repeating over and over again in time with the frantic beat of his heart. He had a sudden memory of another night, of running towards Beckett's old apartment, of seeing and hearing the percussive explosion—and then not being able to breathe until he'd found her alive.

He might never forgive himself for not having had his phone on him to answer it so he would have heard sooner, not missed her call, even her accidental one.

He raced up the stairs to her floor, a spike of relief hitting him at the sight of her closed and locked door—no one had broken in to attack her, at least—followed by a renewed stab of terror at what else might be happening, what was wrong. He knocked quickly, as gently as he could manage. "Beckett? Beckett!"

No answer.

Oh god.

Thank god she'd given him a spare key weeks ago—along with the warning that if he ever used it without her permission or otherwise in a non-emergency situation, she would shoot him. This was an emergency now. He almost fumbled again in his frantic rush to unlock the door but he managed it.

"Beckett?"

He heard the sound of fast breathing, his gaze swiveling to find her—and then he abruptly dropped to the floor—gun!—before he belatedly realized and then peered up at her, terror and worry clogging his throat at the sight of her, his heart aching like it might physically crack.

Beckett was holding the gun but it was wavering in her trembling arms—and was that blood on her wrists?—as she crouched in a defensive position in the corner, half-hidden behind her couch. He could hear her swift, jagged breathing.

She was hyperventilating.

 _Oh god, Kate…_

His heart broke.

Moving slowly, very carefully, he picked his way across her apartment to her, avoiding the broken glass.

She didn't respond, didn't move aside from her continued trembling, her harsh, rasping breaths.

She didn't know he was there, he realized with a fresh spike of terror. Too lost inside her own head.

Very, very slowly, cautiously, hardly daring to breathe too hard, he moved to sit beside her. He wanted to touch her—ached to hold her with an almost physical longing—but he didn't know if she would allow it, want it.

And he'd done some research on PTSD and flashbacks, enough to know that touching someone in the midst of one could be a very bad idea, could startle them further.

He hesitated, dithered, but he couldn't—he couldn't _not_ touch her somehow so he settled for sliding a careful arm around her back, his hand resting lightly on her trembling shoulder. Not holding her, not restraining her in any way, but just to touch her, be there for her, some tactile reassurance of his presence, although at the moment, he suspected that was more for himself than for her.

She was trembling, he could feel the fine tremors going through her, hear the jagged edges of her breathing.

"Kate… Ssh, Kate, it's okay. You're safe. I've got you. I'm here. It's okay, Kate," he murmured with no clear idea of what he was saying, a soft litany of soothing mumbles.

His eyes swept her apartment, noting the broken glass on the floor beside it, her phone. His heart twisted as his vivid imagination filled in the scene, conjecturing what had likely happened. Kate drinking, alone, some noise or something startling her, setting off a flashback, Kate stumbling, the tumbler falling to the floor and shattering, her phone probably going with it—and that must have been when it had dialed him—and the remains of the empty whiskey bottle also on the floor, in pieces, which had probably been the glass he had heard breaking on the message.

God, Kate, why hadn't she said—but even as he thought it, he knew it was a silly question. Of course she wouldn't have said anything. There was a now-familiar hard knot of frustration in his chest at the thought. This was Beckett, self-sufficient, independent Beckett. She always said she was fine, would probably have insisted she was fine even if she were gushing blood from a massive head wound. It was part of what made her so frustrating when he sometimes thought that what he wanted most in the world was to be the person with whom she could let down her guard, be the person to hold her up, give her strength, in the few times when her own nearly limitless strength failed.

He should never have left her alone, should never have believed her assurances.

He didn't know what he would have done—it wasn't as if she would have welcomed his help—but he should have tried harder, should have stayed with her, talked to her or distracted her or _something_. He'd _known_ she wasn't really fine.

Not that he'd ever imagined in his worst nightmares that Kate was suffering this badly, that this case had affected her this strongly, but he still should have done something. She might need space and he could and would give her the space she needed, but not like this, not for this.

He wasn't sure how many minutes passed—enough for him to have gotten stiff, his back and shoulders beginning to ache a little from the tension, not that he cared. He would have stayed like that with her forever.

Slowly, her trembling eased almost imperceptibly, the cadence of her gasps for breath changed, and she gave a shaky sob and for the first time since he'd entered her apartment, made a voluntary movement as she shifted.

"Cas—Castle?" Her voice was wobbly, broken, a little confused—so very unlike the Beckett he knew so well and loved.

"I'm here, Kate. It's okay."

Carefully, he lifted his free hand to grasp her gun and gently twisted, feeling a surge of relief as she let it go. Equally carefully, he set the gun aside, noting that the safety had been on the whole time. Of course it had been. He felt a sudden surge of something like pride. Even on a night like tonight, when Beckett had clearly not been herself, she had still remembered to keep the safety on her gun. Because she was Beckett and her gun safety training was instinctive even now.

"How—what—how did you…"

"You called me. Somehow. Your phone must have—anyway, it left a voicemail. I heard glass breaking and I was… concerned," he temporized.

"Castle, I… I heard… It was happening again, the shot, the sirens, the pain, and I… couldn't breathe, couldn't make it stop. I couldn't make it stop," she gasped, shudders going through her.

He froze at her words, the implications suddenly breaking in on him like a crack of lightning, his arm falling from around her shoulders in shock. She remembered. She had to remember. He didn't know if she'd always remembered—his heart twisted—or if this case had broken open the memories she'd managed to repress until now—but it didn't matter. She remembered.

"I couldn't make it stop," she gasped again and then with another shuddering breath, she suddenly began to sob, ugly, harsh sobs tearing from her throat, as she curled in further into herself.

 _Oh god, Kate…_

Castle forgot what he was thinking, what he was feeling, at the sudden revelation that she remembered her shooting. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except for Kate and he loved her and she needed him. Something cracked open inside his chest and he wrapped his arms around her, tugging her unresponsive, shaking body into the circle of his. And he didn't care that he'd never held her like this before and wasn't sure how she would react if she'd been her normal self. The woman he loved was crying and vulnerable and needed someone and he was there and he would have been more than mortal if he'd resisted the need to hold her, to comfort her somehow.

It was bittersweet, poignant agony and joy to hold Kate like this, to finally have her in his arms where he'd wanted her to be for so long, and have it be for such a reason, have her be so distraught that he wasn't sure how conscious she was of his presence. He could feel her shaking body against him, hear her jagged sobs, each one lacerating his heart, and he could only wish, desperately, that somehow, just holding her was helping her somehow, wish that she would let him hold her like this whenever she cried. Wish that she would let him in.

Kate didn't cry for long, just a few minutes, he guessed, her sobs gradually slowing and then stopping. But even afterwards—his heart leaped—she didn't move, just stayed in the circle of his arms, let herself stay leaning against him.

Slowly, emboldened a little, he let his hand move to stroke her hair, the disheveled curls spilling past her shoulders, his fingers lightly tangling in some errant strands. As he'd dreamed of doing for so long now.

Silence settled over them and he became belatedly aware, once again, of the background noises from the bustling city outside, the occasional creak from footsteps from neighboring apartments.

She stirred, shifting her head just a little but only to turn her head and settle it against his shoulder again. "'m sorry, Castle," she mumbled.

"Nothing to be sorry for, Kate."

"No, I am sorry. It's late and I didn't—I didn't want you to see me like this." She made a sound that was something like a gulp, as if she were choking back more sobs. "I'm so… broken and I'm trying… trying to be better, but I…"

"Ssh, Kate," he interrupted her, taking his life into his hands by hushing her. "It's okay. You can always call me, okay, any time of the day or night. And you will get better. You will—because you're extraordinary, remember?"

"Extraordinarily damaged," she muttered.

He inwardly flinched even as he was oddly encouraged. It was so like Beckett to push back like that. Not for her were facile reassurances. She always needed more, never made things easy. And she deserved more, more thought, more care, more depth. "The Japanese have an art form known as kintsugi," he began slowly, "where they use gold to mend broken pottery, remake broken pottery pieces into something new. They accept the visible fault lines in the new piece of pottery as part of the life cycle of pottery, as it were, see beauty in the imperfections."

"You're comparing me to pottery now?" she asked, her voice rather watery, and he knew she was, at least, listening. Not quite accepting—yet—but the thread of challenge, of skepticism, wasn't there.

"Hemingway said, 'the world breaks everyone, then some become strong at the broken places.' That's what you do, Beckett," he continued, deliberately switching to her precinct name, the name when she was at her most confident. He paused, hesitated, and then ventured on, gently, more cautiously. "It's what you did with what happened to your mom, let it fuel your passion, your drive. It's what makes you the best, Beckett. You might feel like you're broken now but with you, that's never the end of the story. You become strong at the broken places. That's who you are, Beckett."

She was silent for a long few seconds. Long enough that he started to worry that he'd overstepped, said too much, too bluntly. He always felt on shaky ground when the subject of her mom's death came up, was never entirely sure how she would take it. He had a sudden flash of painful memory— _you think you know me, Castle, but you don't…_ _You know what we are? We are over..._

And then… "I don't know how you can still think that," she half-sniffled.

It wasn't a rejection. A tiny tendril of hope sprouted in his chest.

"I do think so because it's true." He paused and tried to inject a note of something approaching their usual banter into his tone. "I've spent almost every day of the last few years following you around so I had to have learned something about you in all that time."

"Oh, Castle," she said in something like a wail. And then before he could even begin to worry again, he felt one of her hands move, creeping up rather hesitantly until she could curl her hand around his shoulder. His heart leaped. She was letting him hold her and—more—she was holding onto him too. Seeking and accepting his presence, his comfort.

He tightened his arm around her. "It's okay, Beckett," he murmured. "I know that you think you can leap tall buildings in a single bound but it's okay to allow yourself to be human once in a while."

She choked on something that might have been a strangled laugh if it had been allowed to grow up. "'m not a superhero, Castle."

 _You are to me._ He decided to leave that unsaid for now. "Maybe not, but you're still extraordinary, still the best cop in the city."

She made a small sound like a grunt as if in negation but didn't argue with him.

And she _stayed_. Stayed in his arms, her body relaxing into his, her breathing evening out. And it was, almost, all he had ever wanted.

He thought about what she'd said. _I didn't want you to see me like this._ Not just tonight, having a panic attack, he realized, but earlier, over the summer too. Understanding suddenly burst in on him like a flash of lightning. That was why she hadn't called. She hadn't wanted him (anyone) to see her when she was weak, vulnerable, physically and emotionally too. This was Beckett. Of course she wouldn't. He might not like it, _didn't_ like it, felt the coil of frustration, even of anger, inside him at the thought—but he understood. And with understanding came forgiveness. Forgiveness made all the easier by the fact that she was with him now, letting him hold her.

He felt the warmth of her body, the solid reality of her, seeping into him, soothing the lingering gashes scored onto his heart from this endless past summer. As if her every breath, every second she spent in his arms, was a balm for every day he'd missed her, recompense for every nightmare he'd awoken from alone. He'd set out to comfort her but she was comforting him, healing him, just as much. She was the one who gave him strength at the broken places.

And it made him hopeful, made him believe.

He waited until he felt the last lingering tension ease from her body, until he was fairly sure she was close to herself again, before he shifted. "Beckett, you have blood on your wrists. Why don't we get you cleaned up?" he suggested, injecting a briskness he didn't feel into his voice.

She stirred, pulling away from him, and he felt a ridiculous pang of loss at the sudden rush of air between them. She blinked at her wrists, at the now-mostly dried blood staining them. "Oh. I… forgot."

She sounded absurdly young for a moment and his heart clenched with a protective tenderness he rarely allowed himself to feel where Beckett was concerned. (Because under normal circumstances, she was about as much in need of his protection as a fully-grown tiger.) He pushed himself to his feet, trying not to grimace at the stiffness in his knees. He didn't like to admit it but he might be getting too old to be spending much time on a hard floor. He offered his hand but he wasn't all that surprised when Kate ignored it as she stood up on her own.

But then—oh, then—she listed into his side, not so much allowing but encouraging him to slip his arm around her shoulder. And again, she stayed beside him, not quite leaning against him but not quite not, as they made their way to her bathroom.

The bright lights of the bathroom after the dimness of her apartment seemed to jolt her a little. "Castle, I can…"

"You can't bandage your wrists with one hand, Kate," he interrupted her mildly. "Let me help."

For a second, he thought she'd refuse, but then after a moment, she nodded.

He hid his surge of relief and poignant happiness behind an assumed air of brisk competence, as he gently washed away the blood from her wrists, noting with relief that there didn't appear to be any shards of glass left.

"First aid kit?"

"In the bottom drawer."

He gestured for her to take a seat on the closed toilet and busied himself with the first aid kit.

"Do you even know what you're doing, Castle?" The question was pure Beckett but she only sounded tired, her voice quiet.

He gave her a huff of mock reproach. "I'm a father, remember? After the first time Alexis cut herself, you can bet I did my research into how to take care of minor cuts and scrapes."

The faintest ghost of a smile softened the set of her lips and she gave a small nod of acceptance.

He hesitated before touching the antiseptic wipe to her skin. "This will hurt."

"Just do it, Castle."

He did, hating the knowledge that the antiseptic must sting. But true to form, Beckett endured it without a flinch, without so much as a grimace, the only indication that it hurt at all in the faint lines that formed around her mouth. He wasn't sure if it was just her usual stoicism or the fact that she'd suffered far worse pain not that many months ago and inwardly flinched at the thought.

He knelt on the floor in front of her with the band-aids and a roll of white gauze, bending his head over her wrist as he gently bandaged up the jagged little cuts on her forearm and secured them with the gauze. And then stiffened a little in surprise, his hands momentarily faltering, as she canted forward, her head coming to rest against his.

He reminded himself to breathe again and moved on to bandage up her other wrist, rubbing a gentle finger across the gauze in the caress he couldn't quite dare to give her skin. "There. All done."

For a moment, she didn't respond but then she lifted her head with a small sigh and met his eyes, managing a faint twitch of her lips into a pale approximation of a smile. "Thank you, Doctor."

The title jarred on his ears and he stiffened, his hands dropping from her arms. "I'm not Josh," he said rather harshly. Not the man who had actually saved her life, not the one she had let touch her and hold her all through last year.

Something, an expression he couldn't read, flickered across her face at the name, the ghost of the smile dropping from her lips. "I know, Castle."

He suddenly hated himself, could have kicked himself for mentioning Josh's name, apparently shattering the warmth and comfort that had settled around them. As if even now the memory of Josh—Doctor Motorcycle Boy—hovered between them, keeping them apart.

An awkward silence hummed between them for a moment. He became aware of the ache in his knees from kneeling on the hard floor.

"It's late," she sighed, breaking whatever had held them in place.

"Right. Right." He stiffly scrambled to his feet, tidying the first aid kit and putting it away to give his hands and his eyes something to do. He was ill at ease, abruptly conscious of how small her bathroom was, that he was alone with her. His heart seemed to have dropped into his stomach. They had been so close—but now, all he could think about was the space between them, literal and figurative, aware of every molecule of air separating them as if it were a tangible thing. "I'll just…" he made a meaningless gesture with one hand towards the door, but then hesitated. "Will you be okay?"

"Will you stay?"

Her quiet question overlapped with his and he froze, staring at her, for a moment doubting the evidence of his ears. And then he saw the flash of nervousness in her eyes, the tiniest twist of her hands, the faint movement of her lower lip as she bit the inner flesh.

His heart was suddenly clattering in his chest. "I—you—uh—" Words, damn it. He knew he'd been capable of speech just a minute ago.

"I just… I don't want to be alone," she admitted, very quickly, the words almost blurring together. _Oh, Kate…_

"Yes," he blurted out, a little too forcefully. "Of course. I can stay. Whatever you need," he went on jerkily.

The set of her shoulders, her lips, relaxed, the faintest ghost of a smile touching her lips, the first spark of something like humor gleaming in her eyes. And he decided he didn't even care if he sounded like an idiot if it made her smile.

And when they left the bathroom, somehow it felt like a beginning.

He followed her but then froze in the doorway of her bedroom, his wide eyes taking in every detail he could make out in the dimness, noting the clean lines of her furniture, the prints on the walls, the neat rows of her clothes through the half-open door of her closet. Her bed. His thoughts, his gaze, stopped and held, his breath arrested in his lungs. He was seeing her bed for the first time.

She climbed into bed and then turned to look at him. "Aren't you—I thought you were staying?"

He almost choked. "I am—I mean—couch—I thought—" he stammered out, incoherently. (Only she could do this to him, turn him into such a stuttering, marginally coherent mess.)

He couldn't see her expression but he guessed that the faint smile was back. But she only shook her head. "Stay. Here."

The simplicity of the words, more, the level of trust they revealed, wrecked him. He almost choked on the swell of emotions but managed to retain enough control to make his way to the other side of her bed.

Oh god. He was in her bed.

He turned his head to look at her, meeting her eyes across the strip of space between their bodies as she lay on her side facing him. The amazing intimacy of it, of lying down next to her, of seeing her face beside his, momentarily stole his breath. Of all that he'd thought might happen in the aftermath of the sniper shootings, he hadn't imagined this. Hadn't dared to imagine this. It really was everything he'd ever wanted, almost.

In some corner of his mind, he imagined he could hear the sound of a wall crumbling.

She wasn't ready yet, the wall not completely down. If it hadn't been for the chance accident—or fate?—of her phone mis-dialing him, he wouldn't have known anything of what she was going through with this case.

But she had asked him to stay. Beckett, who almost never asked for anything, had asked him to stay.

"Castle?"

"Hmm?" He had to push the answering mumble out past the knot in his throat.

Her voice was a whisper, just a breath in the dark. "Josh didn't... help me heal. You do. You make things easier."

He forgot how to breathe again. Because in her voice, in her admission, all he heard was, _I love you_.

But before he could even begin to recover his ability to speak, she yawned, her eyes fluttering closed.

"Sleep, Kate," he finally managed to whisper.

"Mm," she mumbled. "Castle? Thank you." The words were quiet, a little slurred with drowsiness.

"Always." And as usual, what he meant was, _I love you._

Gradually, her breathing slowed, evened out, as she slid into sleep. And he lingered. He definitely wasn't going to get any sleep tonight because there was no way he wanted to miss any of this amazing intimacy of sharing a bed with Kate Beckett, even platonically, as tonight was. The intimacy of watching her sleep, listening to the faint, even sound of her breathing, aware with every nerve in his body of the nearness of hers.

His eyes wandered, fell on the gauze wrapped around her wrists. He remembered the broken glass in the living room and made a mental note to get up to clean it, later, once he was sure she was sleeping soundly.

Beside him, Kate stirred a little, one hand twitching.

Moving very slowly, carefully, so as not to disturb her, he ever so gently slid his hand over until it was lightly resting over hers. And then he thought his heart might burst in his chest when her hand burrowed in further, grasping his fingers.

She let out a soft sigh and slept on.

And just as she'd asked, he stayed and guarded her sleep.

 _~The End~_

 _A/N 2: Thank you, everyone, for reading!_


End file.
